Words Untethered
by Hathor-Aroha
Summary: Cogsworth stops one day in front of the closed library doors, and discovers that for the first time in forever, the prince's voice is unafraid and unrestrained as he converses and reads aloud with Belle. Takes place during the curse.


Cogsworth could not help but pause in front of the library's closed doors, caught in the sound of Belle's and the prince's voices animated in eager discussion. Not that he could make out much of what they were discussing—some book or other, he surmised in full certainty nevertheless. Even if the incessant ticking inside him had been silent in nature, the voices beyond the doors stayed secret and muffled, their discussions safe behind closed doors.

But Cogsworth had not stopped here to eavesdrop with intent—no! How rude of conduct that would be!—but only to listen to how much richness of quality the prince's voice had rediscovered after a terribly long time. How long had it been since he'd heard the prince—whom he had known since the day of his birth—talk so freely in such lilting, unafraid phrases and pitch? Even years before the Enchantress had come to the castle that catastrophic night, the prince's laugh had never sounded…right. Hollow, as if it missed—and he, on reflection quite thought this true—a beating heart full of good humour and delight. He could, with great ease, imagine the young lady chatting for hours with him, and he would not lose that quality of boyish happiness in his words in the least.

Lost in his delight and memories of times long ago, he stood quite still—very much so—as though he fully had become a silent, resting mantle clock. He'd not thought he'd feel so stricken by such a sound as this, to hear the Master sounding as animated and untethered in his conversation with Belle. So intent upon his reflections was old Cogsworth, he did not notice Lumiere skipping up to him. Only when a familiar candle arm, flame burning perpetually on the wick of the candlestick, drape itself about his "shoulders" did he then shift with a modicum of alarm out of his reverie.

"Cogsworth! You are eavesdropping, _mon ami_?"

"What!" Cogsworth protested, a shot of guilt rattling through him, though he'd done nothing of the sort, "No, Lumiere, I was merely listening."

"Ah! You _were_ eavesdropping!"

Cogsworth shushed him sharply, but his words were softer.

"Have you heard him so happy in conversation before?" he asked his friend, "When has he last conversed with such energy and freedom?"

Lumiere waved his arms dramatically, flames puttering, leaving trails of smoke through the air. "He won't be so conversant were he to know you were—"

" _Not. Eavesdropping._ " Cogsworth interrupted, "You cannot make out what they are saying anyhow."

"Only because you are old—"

Cogsworth sputtered with great indignity. "My hearing is as fine as ever, thank you very much!"

A golden eyebrow cocked in mocking scepticism. Cogsworth didn't bother hiding an eyeroll—really, _how_ he put up with him, only God in his high heaven knew. Deciding not to indulge Lumiere with a reply, he turned his attention back to the closed doors and the two voices beyond, deep in their conversation. And, despite all his talk afore of "eavesdropping", Lumiere, too, turned to lean forward on his toes, arms tucked behind his back, face intent as he, too, listened to the happy melody of discussion, however incomprehensible it may have been.

" _Mon dieu._ They talk of erotic poetry."

"What?!" Cogsworth choked, more horrified than he ought by the revelation. After all, was not the prince now an adult and not a child?

Lumiere took one look at his shocked face and began laughing uproariously.

"Hah! Got you there!"

"Yes, yes, absolutely hilarious," Cogsworth grumbled, "I am ready to faint from the breathless fit of laughter that now afflicts me."

"Oh lighten up, old friend!"

"Surely, they have heard _you_ now," Cogsworth huffed, still annoyed he had fallen—once again, as ever—for Lumiere's "amusing" tricks.

Smug with himself, though his great Parisian laughter still escaped past golden lips, Lumiere returned his attention a second time to the doors. "So, what, if not to eavesdrop, had you come here for?"

"I noted a happy change in the Master's conversations." A pause with a moment's reflection. "Do you remember when last our Master sounded so unrestrained in his conversing?"

Finally, Lumiere pulled himself together, his laughter calming down to relative quietness, his candle arms twisting up as he listened. He tilted his head that way and that, candles' flames fluttering with his movement.

"He does sound high in spirits, old friend, doesn't he?"

"Higher spirits than I've heard him in a long time."

"The Miss has been wonderful for him—I _knew_ she would be the girl we were looking for!"

"When have you last heard him so happy in conversation?"

"Just this morning!"

Cogsworth shook his head. " _Before_ Belle arrived at the castle."

That gave Lumiere some pause. "We've talked to him at one time or another during this curse, haven't we?"

"If you define conversation as exchanging a word or two apiece at best, then yes, we have. But has he sounded _this_ happy before? Do you remember a time when he was so animated in words? He has never talked for _hours_ with such unfettered contentment since…"

Lumiere's candles dimmed with the weight of Cogsworth's unspoken words.

"He used to read books aloud for our amusement, do you remember, Lumiere?"

"Didn't he once insist that he read a story to Mrs Potts at bed, because he could read the words like a big boy now? At all of four! I wasn't here then, but Mrs Potts told me all about it."

Cogsworth, had he been human form, would have been seen to be smiling in broad remembrance, blue eyes glimmering with a hint of sorrow and happiness.

"It is true."

"Ah! Were I there to see it then!"

"He once offered to read aloud an essay written for professors that I happened to be reading. All of seven."

"Really? A boring essay?"

"It was _not boring._ History is more fascinating than—"

"We read a little of Homer's plays together once."

"History."

"But _in poetry._ If all history was written in odes and sonnets…there's a thought, Cogsworth, if you like history so much, why don't you write it for me in poetry?"

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Excellent!"

Sometimes Cogsworth wondered if Lumiere sometimes genuinely missed his sarcasm or he only pretended to do so. It was difficult to tell with that insufferable man sometimes.

"Once he found a book of poems," Cogsworth said, "And read some aloud to his mother."

Lumiere fell quiet, quieter than his usual, "Wasn't that less than a year before her passing away?" he whispered.

"Yes, Lumiere, I remember well."

And he remembered too well what happened after his mother had passed away, rest her good soul. His father, now free to unleash his utmost abuse on the boy, extinguished all happiness in conversing and reading aloud. Convinced quickly that reading aloud was something little boys less his nine years of age did, the words fell quiet, muffled quickly into fearful silence. No longer did he read aloud, even to himself. No more did he show a poem to Chapeau and ask him to compose a piece on his violin based on its flowing words, nor did he ever again read aloud even to himself the great plays of Shakespeare or the classic era of Greece and Rome. No more did he walk through the halls with a read under his arm with great pride, but hid books away like a terrible, shameful secret no-one should ever know. The library keened with silence.

His happiest words in those terrible days were then only found in the pages of books. What he once talked of within those pages, he stayed quiet. Nothing could induce him to talk of his latest reads, nor of anything at all. All the happiness in his voice had flown with his mother's soul.

"I thought we'd never hear him so happy and conversant again," Cogsworth whispered.

Lumiere's words were hushed, even choked. "I had given up on it that we would. And here we are."

They fell silent, the golden candelabra and the ornate mantle clock, listening a minute longer to what they once thought lost, but now returned again. Bittersweet and strange, the memories that it brought back—of his mother, of his old happiness before she died, of how he had conversed with them once upon a time with unfettered voice.

"Do you know, Cogsworth, this is the first time I have heard him so happy in conversation as a man? All of twenty-three!"

"And so you are right, old friend. You are quite right."

And, in that moment, there was no more beautiful sound than that of their prince's voice, rich now with the tones of a grown man, unafraid as he read aloud and conversed the hours away with Belle.

"Isn't it strange, Cogsworth, listening to him, I imagine him not as a beast, but as a human."

And again, Cogsworth listened close, and could not disagree with Lumiere. True, the prince's voice had changed as a beast, but there he heard again in its soft melody, the boy who once had been so proud to read and talk aloud for hours at a time with those he cherished. He could full imagine Belle beyond the closed doors sitting on a soft sofa not with a Beast, but with a full grown man, their heads bent low in conversation, their latest read open on their laps, the shiest and smallest of smiles on Adam's lips as he talked with Belle.

And for the first time since the curse's initial dark days, he dared allow himself to hope that perhaps true love would save them all after all.


End file.
